Could definitely go on about the various politics for hours. I usually just summarize such conversations with a few of the following points: My property taxes here have gone down more times than up since I've lived here... net increase of about $120/yr over nearly a decade... and by contrast, a friend in southern California pays more per year in property taxes in a year, for a property 1/4 the size of mine (not even in a very densely populated area, either), than I have in the past decade combined.
AND I have faster internet.
So for me personally, it seems it's obvious which places people are better off... but, to each their own. Business wise, the math is pretty clear that you'd have to be insane to have a company in California, and for most part it seems people have gotten that message.
for Tesla's move to Texas. hehe
Anyways! </politics>
Nevada was definitely an option, if nothing else than to make transport to/from California make more sense. Expanding locations is on the road map, but the main thing is our operation takes up a lot of space to do safely and effectively.... you know, no Roadsters sitting packed 2" apart and all. We're using the bulk of our current 30,000+ sqft space as it is, and it'd be tough to do everything sensibly in a significantly smaller space (which would likely be needed to get any space remotely cost effectively out west, even Nevada, especially California... for what we pay for our space here you'd get a shoebox in California, it's crazy). Problem is, if we had a smaller space just for service stuff to save car hauling but not actually doing our normal backend work there, then we're not really saving the customer anything since we'd still be shipped components cross country one way or another and having to pass along that cost.
So, it's an interesting balance, and one we check into pretty often to see if anything else makes sense.
